Hi all,
Prop admin, part two...this one will focus almost
exclusively on books I read in May.
If you missed it- I briefly mentioned three books I read
which made almost no impression on me in my last post- Jane, An Episode in the
Life of a Landscape Painter, and Downtown Owl.
Have a look if interested...
Familiar friends return...
Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman was probably the
most enjoyable of his books that I've reread so far. It is a collection of
essays and, as expected, covers the widest array of topics possible. I think
this is the most recommendable of his books so far (*)
*Klosterman is dropping by Cambridge on Thursday, June 9, in connection with the release of his newest book. I'll be sure to chime in with my thoughts next month.
I'm not quite sure where I stand regarding Haruki Murakami's
Kafka On The Shore. Reading this one started slowly for me but, at some point,
I locked into the story and raced through the final two hundred pages.
On reflection, this is perhaps not my favorite of his novels
but might be the most 'Murakami' one I've read this year- a story written in
the mood and style that I associate strongly with him (1). If you like the
author, you'll like reading this, but perhaps the most likely outcome is you
will want to reread some of his other work that you enjoyed in the past (*).
*Well, in my case anyway. I still have three or four more to go before I wrap up his entire published/translated work but then I will likely go back and reread three or four of my favorites from this author.
Thoughts on a good story...
Actually, the title is The Good Story. This book is an
exchange between a writer and a psychotherapist. The primary thread of the book explores storytelling
in the context of how we examine and interpret our own lives. There is also an
element of psychotherapy here which I did not draw as much insight from but
nevertheless found insightful.
This work involves two people going back and forth and
therefore it lacks the big, coherent ideas that some might seek out in their
reading. However, I took several insights or comments that I found
interesting. I'll put the book notes
into the bottom of this post (final footnote).
I found it an interesting coincidence that a book I began
reading at the end of May, Tiny Beautiful Things, puts a lot of the
observations made in The Good Story into the context of real-life
situations. I'll write more about this
in July because I finished Tiny Beautiful Things on June 1, making it ineligible
for proper dissection in this post.
Remember when I talked about the interview question from
Zero To One?
It was in my first ever post but, well, that answer I wrote about is now headed out the window.
Divine
Beauty, by John O'Donohue, articulated an idea that I think is a much truer
answer to that question. In one section of the book, he writes that the most
astonishing moment of revelation in his life was that there is death.
The story he describes is one from his childhood. In it, he
writes of how jarring a moment it is to learn that one day someone is here and
the next, they are not. How true it is.
A strange thing happened while reading this book. I took my
usual notes, as described in a past post, but I also found myself writing horrendous haikus to capture concepts that did not translate so easily
to my usual note taking style. Here is one I put together to describe the above
idea:
What I see as truth
The thing that lies beyond proof
Is that there is death
This one must have come to mind when I was doing laundry or
folding paper cranes:
I fold with care so
Corner meets corner and yet
It always ends crooked
Sometimes, fully inhabiting darkness is the best way to find
the light:
To see a sun rise
And erase night with new light
You must wake in dark
Ten points if you can figure out what song I just listened to:
With a new band and
Maybe new lyrics this song
Could be pretty good
I think everyone has suffered long enough in this poetic nonsense-
but it is not as bad as some places I've been lately:
Public restroom means
Below the bowl a puddle too
Just water I bet
I adapted this one last Friday to talk about a specific bar
I was at:
(__ __ __) restrooms
Fresh puddles ripple underfoot
Just water I'm sure
Perhaps the most enduring idea from this book was the idea
that we are not equipped to see beauty, we are equipped only to see
beautifully.
Remember that post about how I 'read' books on some sort
of 'schedule'? Yeah, about that...
The last week of May was a difficult one for me. And as I've
mentioned before, when the going gets tough, the reading gets impacted first.
So, I knew what I had to do next when I picked up Torch, a
novel by Cheryl Strayed, and found that I could not put it down- I went right
to her next book, Wild, a memoir about her hike along the Pacific Coast Trail.
As soon as that wrapped up, I moved on to Tiny Beautiful Things. This book,
which I first read last year right around this time, is a series of reprinted
articles from her 'Dear Sugar' advice column (*).
As mentioned above, I finished reading Tiny Beautiful Things on June 1. I think it will work best if write about all three of those books together in greater detail at some point next month. For now, I'll share a couple of quick ideas.
I learned from Wild that if your toenails are
constantly cracking or falling off, your shoes might be too small. I know I've
changed a lot over the years but I never thought my size twelves would require
an upward adjustment. Shoe size inflation at Nike?
Tiny Beautiful Things led me to Dear Sugar Radio, a weekly
podcast where Cheryl Strayed and her 'Dear Sugar' advice column predecessor,
Steve Almond, answer questions from listeners. These questions are discussed in the same way the advice column wrote about them- with truth, with compassion, and always with an eye forward toward
becoming the best version of who you are meant to be.
I like the radio format a little better because it feels 'live'.
As I've learned myself this year in the process of writing this blog, there is
a distinct difference between writing your first draft and finishing the final-
the final draft is how your head sorts, organizes, and presents the first draft
that poured from your heart.
The podcast, though certainly produced to an extent, retains
that fully organic feeling you get from a great conversation. Real life is
messy, lacking in dress rehearsals and proofreading. I think the nature of the
topics covered is better addressed in a medium that retains this feeling.
Tiny Beautiful Things was great the first time, reaching me
in a place last June that almost no other books could, and rereading it a
second time was critical in a way I am still exploring. When it comes to medicine for the soul, every treatment is a placebo. The tonic will work in this context only if you trust the source and consume the words and ideas that you believe in.
I'm grateful that the
essence of the book lives on through this podcast and I'm looking forward a
great deal to each of these episodes.
More podcast chat...
One podcast that I tried and discarded recently was Song Exploder. The concept is simple and appealed to me right away- musicians talk about the creative process behind a song and take the listener through a detailed examination of each component that makes up the song. Each episode is around fifteen minutes long, which I consider a plus.
I tried four episodes featuring artists or songs that I already knew. I enjoyed the episodes but concluded that if I did not find each episode fascinating for its exploration of something I already knew, it would be futile to listen in on a discussion about something I never listened to before.
Still, I did enjoy the episodes (2). U2 was, as always, fully able to articulate the meaning behind both process and product. Will Butler and MGMT each expressed joy in their craft and thoroughly analyzed the process of finding the right sounds for their music.
I liked Courtney Barnett's episode about 'Depreston' the best (*). It revealed something about her music that, although I understood it on some level up throughout 2016, I was unable to fully confirm until the end of the episode. I'm not sure what the right word is for it- wisdom, maturity, perspective- but she seems to come up with music that contains some combination of those three.
*Surprise...
It reminds me of the work produced by someone who has been around a little longer, both as a person and an artist. Although the members of U2 are twice my her age, I do not think it is any accident that her episode resembled theirs much more closely than it the episodes from Will Butler or MGMT, two artists who were born in my her decade.
The way she described the song reminded me of an idea I really liked this month. It was about how art is a consciousness of your own life. With art, anecdote moves past the limits of the personal and helps us understand what our experiences mean and how they fit into the context of our lives. The artist who continues to do this might one day find a way to create the work which guides others to the place where they can do the same for themselves.
Thanks for reading. Back next Tuesday, just before lunchtime.
Tim
Footnotes...
0. I think I said I had a list of 2012 books to throw in
here?...
I may not have promised this in my last post but I did
intend to pick out some winners from 2012 to make up for a lack of 'life
changing' analysis. It is coming soon! A lot changed between last Monday and
today (Sunday, June 5) and the blog's content direction has shifted as a result.
1. The most 'Murakami' musings...
Another way to articulate this idea involves music. At some
point, every band comes up with a sound that listeners associate with them.
This does not necessarily mean that the band's best or most well known song is
one that has this sound.
I went to see a Muse concert in January and thought they fit
into this category. Their most well
known song at the moment is likely 'Madness' but this song does not sound very
much like their other well-liked tracks. If I had to pick one song out for the
band that best encompassed their 'sound', it would likely be 'Stockholm
Syndrome'.
An analogy which covers this idea in a much zanier way is if I went outside
and immediately caught a baby falling out of a third-story window. This would
objectively be the best thing I do today and likely something I become fairly
well known for. However, it would hardly
be describable as a 'Tim Concannon' type of thing to do- I rarely catch things at street-level and usually go months between interactions with infants.
I think Murakami's most well-known (and perhaps well-liked)
book is 1Q84 but I think there are a couple of others books that have a
stronger imprint of his style, including Kafka On The Shore.
The latter is a solo effort from one of the Arcade Fire's core members. His brother, Win, is the frontman of the band and looks almost exactly like Jimmy Chitwood from Hoosiers.
Book note endnote: The Good Story...
These book notes were not organized into categories or
themes as I felt each of the ideas here stands alone.
*Should the story of a life be like that matra of the
courtroom- the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but? Or should it seek to construct the most interesting possible narrative?
*Repetition of a life story which slants our past to our
liking is one way we try to change our past
*Relationships take two stages- the first is where we go along
with the other, meeting their needs or worldview, and the second
is when we first establish distance that is used to view the other in a
colder, separate light.
*True therapy can begin when we stop searching for a miracle
cure and instead embrace the slow, halting, and grinding process of
trying to take small daily steps toward healing.
*Societies cannot heal if they collective choose to ignore
what troubles them
*Those who bully others project their own feelings of
smallness onto the target- to what extent is this projection real for those
who are funny, insecure, clever, dull, etc?
*Do the naughty 'grow up' over time or does the system
simply weed out students who do not fit what the culture demands of those it self-selects to carry it forward?
*Most societies have no need for a large number of immature
males.
